Reflections
by imkerfuffled
Summary: "The man living in this room today is not Sirius Black. Sirius Black died fourteen years ago with James and Lily Potter, and the person I see sulking at the back of Order meetings is nothing more than a ravaged legacy of the Askaban Dementors." Set mid-OoP, Remus reflects on the past and the present. Because Sirius never really left Askaban… not in heart. Major angst. NO SLASH.


**AN: Here's another thing for Remus, but I'm going to warn you now; there is no happy ending at the end of this one.**

**Also, I realized that once again, I forgot to do a disclaimer for my last fic (_It's What Friends Do_-also about Remus and friendship, this time with James. And that one had a fluffly ending... I'm not even going to pretend this isn't shameless self-advertising) so, here's a disclaimer for both: Don't own. Don't sue. Thank you.**

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I sit hunched on the edge of the bed, surveying the room around me with a sad nostalgia—no, nostalgia implies a sort of happiness in remembering "the good old days". Right now, I feel only sadness when I think about what has led up to this day.

How could the same boy who plastered his wall with cut-out centerfold girls, Muggle motorcycles, and the explosion of Gryffindor banners that I see now… how could he be the same man who skulks in the dark corners of this house today?

The same boy I met at the Sorting Ceremony would never _skulk_, he would never wallow so deep in his own self-pity that it would take a shovel to dig him out.

He wouldn't sit at the kitchen table drinking bottle after bottle of Firewhiskey until he gets too drunk to even remember his own name.

He would never have dreamt that one day he would be in a position where he was willing to murder one of the closest friends he ever had.

The man living in this room today, I realize, is not Sirius Black. Sirius Black died fourteen years ago with James and Lily Potter, and the person I see sitting miserably in the back of Order meetings is nothing more than a ravaged legacy of the Askaban Dementors, after they pilfered every bit of happiness he had ever known and spit it back out, twisted and tortured into something only vaguely recognizable as being—at some point—a good memory, leaving him a shell of the boy I once knew and loved. He is a living reminder that sometimes the side you are fighting for can be just as bad as the side you are fighting against.

Although I wonder now and again whether "living" can even begin describe Sirius. He has no "life" left in him. It feels at times as though he never left Askaban.

I have grown to hate Dementors just as much, almost, as I do Voldemort for what they have done—are doing—to my best friend in the world. If I ever survive this impending war, I swear I will not rest until every last Dementor is out of Askaban. I know it sounds clichéd, but I will stop at nothing to avenge Sirius for the twelve years he lost to those monsters. No man deserves that fate, no matter what they may have done to warrant it.

I blame myself, somehow, though the logic does not hold up in the face of reason. I hold myself responsible for what has happened to him.

Sirius does not blame himself for that; he blames Peter Pettigrew, as should I. What he does blame himself for is what happened to James and Lily. For that, I place the guilt firmly on Voldemort and Peter. It was never Sirius' fault. How could he have known that _Wormtail _was the spy that Dumbledore knew to be in the Order?

It was a very cruel twist of irony indeed that made Peter the hero in everybody's eyes. The Order of the Phoenix suspected I was the spy, the world thought they _knew_ Sirius was the spy… but nobody even thought to consider Peter, the one who was always overlooked, always cast aside, always picked on, put down, belittled… the one who's Animagus form was a _rat _for Merlin's sake!

Perhaps that is why I blame myself for what happened to Sirius. I was, in a way, closer to Peter than I was to James and Sirius at school, and I blame myself for not realizing what Peter was at the time, before it was too late to save James, Lily, and Sirius from their fates. In hindsight, everything is obvious.

To be honest with myself, I tried very hard not to think about who might be a spy. I didn't want to believe anybody in the Order was secretly passing information to Voldemort, and so I did what I always do when faced with a hard decision. I ran away from it, if only metaphorically in this case. If forced to choose, I would have guessed Mundungus Fletcher was the traitor, but once again, it didn't stand up to inspection. Fletcher didn't know a lick of Occlumency—a crucial skill for any spy matching wits with Albus Dumbledore—and if he did, I suspect even _my_ feeble grasp of Legimency would have seen through it. For a thief, he is a horrible liar.

I, on the other hand, fit _every_ criterion. I could perform Occlumency fairly well, and (as I said before) I even had a small, innate skill at Legimency. I was relatively new to the Order; I realize (in hindsight, of course) that I may have been a bit ambiguous in my views toward all things ethical, and I don't even have to mention my "furry little problem" as Padfoot and Prongs would have put it.

To explain my apparent ethical issues: I never accept an idea without picking it apart and examining every little flaw—on both sides of the argument. I detest people like Crabbe and Goyle—people who don't think for themselves and will follow something blindly, without even considering _why _they follow it. Like in the Muggle book, Nineteen Eighty-Four, if Lucius Malfoy were to suddenly declare his undying love for all things non-magical, then his two little cronies would immediately deny they had ever supported pureblood supremacists.

But I digress.

I always tread very carefully around an ethical problem. Before I decide what to believe about any subject, I will form a carefully structured argument for both sides. It doesn't mean I am any less loyal to either side; that's just my thought process. In fact, in nine times out of ten, the things I argue most fiercely _against _are the things I feel most strongly _for_. I'm not entirely sure why this is the case—I suppose it is some sort of test for myself. If I can put myself in my "enemy's" shoes, if I can understand what happened, what he went through, see the reasoning behind his actions… can I still be confident that I would make the same choices that _I _have made?

I have always second-guessed myself, and James, Sirius, and even Peter knew that (know that. Only James is dead.), but a curious fact about myself is that often, when I do find myself questioning my ideas, a second (or third, or fourth) look at the facts only leads me right back to my original opinion, and with even more force and conviction than before. And James and Sirius knew that (know that).

Or… I thought they did. Unfortunately, one side-effect of war is its tendency to make you question everything you ever believed in. Blaming me was the easy way out for the Order; I was new, I was young, and—of course—I was a werewolf. No matter how earnestly one tries to bury it, I've found that every witch and wizard still holds a seed of prejudice against my kind. I don't blame them for it, not if they at least try to overcome it. It's our society that is at fault; prejudice is too deeply ingrained in Wizarding psyche.

I guess, what I am trying to say by this, is that I don't blame James, and Sirius, and everybody else for not believing in me. I can't pretend it doesn't hurt, because it does—it hurts a lot—but they can't be blamed for it. They're both purebred wizards, and they can't help it, in a way…

"Remus?" I look up to see Sirius standing in the doorway, and force myself to come back to reality, plastering that effortless smile on my face that I don't think anyone has seen through yet.

"What are you doing in here?" he asks, but it isn't accusatory. It's like… he already knows the answer. He's been living the answer for the past fourteen years.

I don't reply right away—because, really we both know no reply is necessary—and he comes over to sit beside me on the bed. Neither of us says a word for a few moments; we simply stare at the wall, lost in identical thoughts of the past.

Finally, I just have to say something. I have to voice what I know we both have been wondering for almost a decade and a half. "What happened to us?" I whisper, gesturing to the single moving photograph on the wall, where James, Sirius, Peter, and I wave happily back at us, incapable of knowing what is to come for them, "Where did we go wrong? Things weren't always like this… What happened to The Fearless Marauders, terrors of the school? What happened to Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs, best friends 'til the end of time? How did _that,_" I sweep my hand vehemently at the smiling photograph again, "go so horribly wrong?"

Sirius just sighs deeply and looks down at his feet. "I don't know," he says finally, "I don't know…"

We sit in silence again, and I wish I could say the things I need to, to make him… I don't know, come back to life? Today, the only person capable of rekindling Sirius' old fighting spirit is Harry. For everyone else, he's simply faded away.

I realize, sitting here now, that he doesn't expect to see the end of this war. I don't either, though I keep pretending otherwise. But it's different for him. I see him staring at the wall, I see the look in his eyes, and I realize he doesn't _want _to survive this war. Oh, he won't commit suicide; he sees that as cowardice, the easy way out, and if there is one thing that can never be said about Sirius Black… He is not a coward. He'll want to die fighting, so he can make a difference. He thinks he doesn't have anything to live _for_. The only hope for him (in his eyes) is if his death will help win the war for Harry and his friends, so they don't have to go through all that we have.

I hate it. I wish he would realize that he really has _so much _to live for. I wish he could see just how many people care about him. We would do anything for him, _anything. _I just wish he could see that.

I wish I could have the old Sirius back: Padfoot, the boy who thinks running around in the dead of night with a werewolf—getting into all sorts of trouble and doing every reckless thing his teenage mind can think of—is the greatest thing a man could every dream of. I wish I could say _something _to bring that boy back—he's still in there, somewhere; I know he is.

But I can't. I can't say anything. Peter was always the one who had a way with words. I was fine, so long as the subject was school-related… but I could never find the right words to say anything of _real _importance. Not when it _really_ mattered.

I'm afraid I'll never be able to tell him just how much he means to me. He was the best friend anyone could ever hope for, and I miss him.

I miss him so much.

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**I'm thinking of maybe doing more things like this,where different characters reflect on the changes in their friends. It depends on if I get some inspiration... Let me know if you like the idea?**


End file.
